


Astraea, Asteria, et Alii

by hallowedmaiden



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-04 12:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16346555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallowedmaiden/pseuds/hallowedmaiden
Summary: Elizabeth makes the decision to act like a pirate, but bites off a little more than she can chew in the Captain's cabin. Sparrabeth. Set in DMC, during the Isla Cruces voyage. M-rated for the incoming second chapter.





	1. Astraea, Asteria, et Alii

Back and forth, alive with crackling energy, the peaks and valleys interchanging positions, darkness and light slithering through each other; no more would her eyes follow one streak of the moon's illuminations before another one overwhelmed the first. On the path through the turbulence, while her breath caught in her throat and her fingers twitched, her gaze finally settled on the moon itself, sitting just above the straight line of the water's edge on the dark horizon. A bright thing in the mystery of the sky above, always present, never known...there even during the dawn of the morning, a restless reminder of a world beyond their own.

Below, the raging and excited chop of the water, mimicking the never-ending expanse above, a wonderful mirror that held its own mysteries.

_There were many things…_

Many things that held mysteries, secrets,  _riddles_...half of her wanted to leap off of the railing and plunge into the depths of the ocean...perhaps she would be running away...if only she could hold her breath long enough to admit to herself that she could never run far enough to escape…

 _Swim_ , rather.

And if she could  _fly_ , ascend into the night...how many stars could she go past before she understood that it too was as futile as inevitably drowning herself?

A small grin cracked her lips, and she tilted her head up once more, not at the moon this time, but at where she imagined the sun would be the next morning. Burning with joyous light...only this time it wouldn't share that joy, only the heat, the fire...it didn't even need to be morning for her body to be actively incinerating itself from the inside.

The sharp beat of her heart reminded her of that every time it slammed against her chest. But why was it doing that? The list... _possible_  list was long. Being away from her home...the chilled lick of the wind on her face...the ever-looming uncertainty of the future.

 _The future_.

It used to be a simple affair. Tea, suitors,  _choosing_  a suitor, marriage, children...being only nine, and being told that this was to be her life…

 _Not this,_ but  _that_...dismal clockwork day-to-day...even being so young, it had sounded dreadfully boring all the same.

As fate would have it... _fate_ , an interesting presence in both her past, present, and,  _now_...as fate would have it, William Turner had made his water-spluttering wide-eyed breathless entrance onto the deck of the ship carrying her from England to Port Royal.

 _That_  might have been the end of it…

It.

_It._

Not her life, certainly, but excitement...well, some people might say that the end of excitement meant the end of life, but none of those people were fortunate...or  _unfortunate enough to_ cross paths with her.

_Don't be silly, you're aboard the ship of one such person._

A bit too paltry to call him a person, really.

_Said the small annoying voice in her head…_

Anyway, that might have been the end of it, but fate spread its cards on the table and within them was the poor decision making of a father giving his son a pirate medallion that would send said pirates chasing said medallion all the way into her mansion ten years later.

It had sent her on a small adventure.

And had sent her into the arms of one rather…

 _Handsome...no,_ don't call him that.

 _Alluring...or that_.

Lovely... _especially_ dangerous.

One rather… _dastardly...that's too mean._

 _Complex...no, too nice_.

One rather  _vexing_  pirate.

And  _into_  his arms meant being nearly throttled with a chain... _you did lay on his shoulder on the island though._

A pirate that had her gripping the railing of  _his_  ship, staring daggers into the ocean, moon, sky, stars, back into her own soul and heart, her face set into a permanent scowl...yes,  _vexing_  was an appropriate word.

And he wasn't even near her. Last she had seen him, he'd been standing at the helm an hour ago, looking God knows where...probably thinking of schemes to get into her breeches, the damnable man.  _Could be worse_...could be more damnable than he is.

Imagine telling him that... _you could be worse, Jack, at least all you're trying to do is seduce me into mindless lust._

The terrible bit was that he didn't have to try very hard.

_You're engaged._

_Focus on the water._

_The moon_ , why you're still out here when you should be sleeping... _anything_. Pretty soon he was going to suddenly appear on deck with one of those infuriating grins of his as though he not only knew what she was thinking about at that exact moment...as though he knew the entire contents of her mind and soul and knew what she'd had for breakfast six years ago on the fourth Sunday in June.

Fate intervening... _what the bloody hell did Beckett know?_

Of course, she could wonder what the bloody hell she knew too.

_Quite a few things, actually._

_Asteria,_ a name that had been one of the many fluttering thoughts tap dancing their way through her mind earlier. Greek goddess of the stars. She remembered trying to pronounce her name when she was little...only got as far as 'Astra'...she was a Titan goddess.

She smiled when she also recalled that Asteria had escaped Zeus after the fall of the Titans by transforming herself into a quail and leaping into the sea.

 _Could follow her example_.

Sure, if she could just transform into her namesake and take a dainty little tumble over the railing...that would solve all of her numerous problems.

 _Problems that all could be traced back to..._ what was he doing in there anyway? What did the great Captain Jack Sparrow do in his free time? Read? Draw maps? Find new belts to wear?

_Don't think about his belts. The belts are dangerously close to…_

_No, don't think about there, that, anything to do with any of that._

Flee back to the side of innocence, before you delved into the dark chasm of... _him_. Follow Astraea, follow  _her_  example... _you can't, not anymore_...well, dammit, Astraea, she could certainly try. She could be a Goddess of Innocence too.

Was Astraea up there in the stars laughing at her plight? The corruption of a maiden...maybe not a star-maiden,  _per se_ , but a maiden nonetheless...the corruption of a  _maiden_...a byproduct of a pirate's desperate attempt to escape (though, if she were to ask him, he would probably boast that it was just to look down her dressing gown)...that simple contact, being pressed up against him, had sent her spiraling down from whatever high place of virtue she had been dangling on...she certainly hadn't been there with any kind of permanence.

She often liked to look back on her school teachings...mythology had been her favorite.

And throughout mythology there had been the repetition of good strong women being catapulted into acting like blithering lovestruck idiots by handsome dark men...and funny that they never really gave any instructions to avoid it. Perhaps she could have... _nevermind, she wouldn't have listened anyway._

Half of her time was spent neck deep in books about pirates...she wanted to know what pirates did, what kinds of things they said, what they dreamed about, whether they got married, how often they sneezed... _ok,_ maybe not that far...but she wanted to know  _everything_.

It only made sense that her pirate obsession would come back around to literally... _no_ , not even bite her in the arse...more than that...it took a chunk out of her heart too, and twisted up her brain into rather impressive knots.

Not it,  _he._

_She hated him._

And then his smoky voice drifted into her head... _Keep tellin' yourself that darlin'._

_Dammit._

_Damn him._

It was only when a sharp pain shot through her jaw that she realized she was gritting her teeth. For  _God's_ sake...squash this ridiculous obsession and go talk to him. Get him out of your system.

 _Go into his cabin_?

Well... _obviously._

But…

_What do you think, he is going to tie you up and tickle you or something?_

_No_...not that she would mind…

_HA!_

...What? Oh,  _shove off_ , it's nothing. Maybe I'll just wait for him to come out-

_Right, he's been in there for an hour. Unless you think you have some kind of special allure that will draw him out like a sailor to a siren…_

_I can't just waltz into his cabin…_

_Why not?_

_Because._

_Because isn't a reason._

_Well, it is for me._

_Come up with a better one._

_...He would kick me out._

The voice inside her head laughed at her for a second time.

_He has just as much chance of kicking you out of his cabin than a shark does of changing his mind about eating a seal. He won't._

_...Not that you would want him to. If you had your way, you would end up in his bed._

_I would not!_

_You absolutely would._

Against her better judgement, her eyes wandered in the direction of his cabin door. It was partially hidden in shadow, the left corner almost white with the glow of the moon, the rest dark and unknown.

" _Curiosity, you want to know what it's like…"_

The chilly wind sent a wave of gooseflesh across her skin as she contemplated something that would surely be her biggest mistake...but what harm could it really do? She was just going to talk to him...ask him some questions, listen to his answers, watch his eyes dance with mirth and mischief like they did when they looked at her...as though he knew things about her that even she didn't know...knew secrets that hadn't even had a chance to form yet...watch his lips curve into that delicious smirk, a jester's smirk...a  _pirate's_  smirk.

Observe, entirely innocently, the unmistakable lines of his body...lean muscles showing through his thin cotton shirt, the way his breeches hugged his arse when we walked...the enticing bit of chest that peeked through, and the spark it gave her imagination to imagine what everything  _lower_  looked like...his hair, a mass that she longed to bury her fingers in, drawing his head closer to her as he moved...raising her legs around his waist, clenching her fingernails into his back like a pleasured cat...smoky moans and heated kisses as they were both scorched beyond recognition by the sweet taste of forbidden indulgence...a  _selfish_  indulgence.

_But that was what being a pirate was all about, wasn't it?_

Acting on your selfish desires...and from the intense blush...the trembling she was doing...evidently her selfish desire was for Jack Sparrow to make passionate love to her.

_You should have stopped those thoughts in their tracks before they even started._

_But I didn't._

_Yes...you didn't. You're done for._

_It's his fault. He...his fault, yes-_

_No, you can't even blame him for it, as much as you wish you could. Jack Sparrow could try much harder to seduce you than he's done...no, I'm afraid this is all your own fantasy. A fantasy that has been growing ever since you first sounded out his name on the damn page._

_Blast._

The door was still looming in the darkness, beckoning her to start taking steps towards it, towards her doom, her salvation... _what, was she comparing him to Satan and angels now?_

...might as well. He could easily fulfill each of those roles.

_Ha, Satan maybe, but an angel? I'm not sure he has the purity for that._

_Neither do you._

Unconsciously, her fingers slid against the smooth wood of the railing, catching for a second on the edge, and then dropping off to hang, attached to her arm that was attached to her shoulder that was turning in the direction of his cabin, and below that, her legs that were just barely being held back from advancing forward all on their damn own.

_Think of the consequences if you go in there._

_What consequences?_

_Will._

_What about Will?_

_You're engaged to him._

_And? I'm permitted to talk to whomever I wish._

_Right, as if you can call any kind of communication you engage in with Jack Sparrow 'just talking'._

It wasn't. It was like they were engaged in an active sword fight with words, taking jabs at each other, then running their tongues over the wounds to soothe and excite before doing it all over again, a harrowing back and forth that always left her on the edge of insanity.

The challenge of outperforming his performance, of finding a snappy comeback that was a just an ounce more clever than his own, adding that special spice to her words, hoping he would throw something back at her even more intensely than before, his eyes burning into her own with a taunting glimmer.

' _Come on, Lizzie, show me that smoldering fire inside of you.'_

He was the snake charmer to her cobra, the stoker to her flames... _damn it._

_The devil to her...lesser devil._

A breath swept into her lungs, just a small one, her foot shifted forward, planting itself on the dark wood below her, the other following suit, then she was walking, being pulled along by invisible ropes that she ought to just hang herself with and be done with it.

Where was Astraea now, where was the innocence that she had never cared much for, never bothered with, and always wished that it would take leave of her too...where was it now that she was willingly leaping into...some kind of danger.

 _Which kind_ , she didn't exactly know. Lustful danger? Certainly. Many other kinds too, no doubt.

_Two more steps._

_What am I even going to say to him?_

" _Hello, Captain Sparrow, sorry to intrude, but you wouldn't mind terribly if I asked you to…"_

_To what?_

_Anything. Anything he would and could do to her, she wanted. All of it._

_Will._

_Not now. She was going to be fully and completely selfish while she had the chance, consequences be damned._

_Three more steps. Almost there._

_The powerful beat of her heart was almost as rapid as her thoughts, swirling about in her mind, thoughts of where his fingers could go, what they could do, what her fingers could do to him...his voice, his eyes, working in tandem to melt her into a warm puddle of begging woman._

Sucking in a grand exhale, she stepped until she found herself staring into the grain of the wood, the vertical looming plane of his door, with the ornate silver handle...the object of her desire just beyond it…

* * *

Each individual muscle strain stood out to her as she curled her fingers around the...gargoyle, she discovered, taking a closer look at it. Narrowed eyes peered out at her, a tarnish in the corners making them seem angry. Then, all of her breath vacated her all at once, leaving her lungs bereft and her mind swimming blindly for some kind of direction, some kind of plan...there was none. She had no idea what to do from here, what she was getting herself into…

_It's now or never. Don't lose confidence, not when you're this close._

A warmer draft of air mingled with the sea chill, the door carving a path through the dim smoky dinge to reveal a handsome cabin bathed in orange candlelight, shapes and shadows flickering around like mischievous faeries...a long shadow extended around the right side of the room, menacing as her eyes followed it all the way around the corner of the small window that was allowing a beam of moonlight to illuminate the center of the floor.

Distracted by the dust dancing around in the shaft of light, she eventually swung her gaze around to the left side of the room, where an elegant desk stood proudly, books and papers covering it, and a few...what looked like maps buried under them. An inkwell and a fountain pen was balanced on the edge, threatening to fall off at any moment...bookshelves filled to the brim with green, red, dark chocolate brown...white, yellow...all kinds of colors adorning the spines of the tomes making a home there.

Did he like to read? Briefly, she imagined him reading her a story... _Odysseus, perhaps,_ or the Iliad. How his voice would wrap around the words, sounding almost more wonderful and exciting than the story itself.

Speaking of  _he_...where was he? The chair at the desk was empty, and it was so quiet...his coat hung on a hook behind the desk, his hat was there too...a sudden ridiculous urge to hurry over and slap it on her head surged through her... _no_ , if you start wearing his clothes, pretty soon he will be trying to take you out of them.

Curiosity getting the best of her, she wandered over to his desk...the  _Captain's_ desk...the loose papers that she hadn't been able to make out before were... _sketches_ , she found. Drawings of ships, pistols...a few of horses, landscapes... _and they were good._

One particular paper was hidden under the rest, the corner of it peeking out just enough for her to notice it. Gingerly picking up the others, she lifted it into the light.

And  _gasped_.

It was... _her_. Standing at the Pearl's railing, staring out into the sea, her hair curling around her shoulders and down her back, the rays of the sun lighting up her face...and there was a small smile adorning her lips.

 _Oh_.

His compass...was in her hand, flipped open, and it was angled in such a way where she could see where the needle was pointing...exactly where it would point if she were to open it now...to Jack, dammit...that would be helpful, in fact, because she still didn't know where he was.

_This cabin is only so damn big._

A chest sat in the far left corner, some cloth draped on the front, spilling out of the open lid. She placed the drawing back on the desk, and went over to it. Kneeling down, being mindful of the noise, not that it made a noise anyway, she lifted the heavy carved cover, and found...silks. A few more hats, a pair of boots, and many different shades of silks.

But Jack didn't seem to be in there.

Smothering a laugh, she stood up, looking behind her in case he was hiding in the corner peering at her with that ridiculous sparkle in his eyes.

 _No_ , not there either.

 _Nowhere_...perhaps he was out on deck somewhere?

_Don't be silly, unless he can turn invisible, there is no way…_

On her next rotation back towards the door, her heart leapt into her throat, her knees felt like they were melting into her calves, and her throat twisted itself into knots. Her blood didn't know which way to go, pounding in her ears, racing through her veins...but her eyes, her eyes remained very sure of where  _they_  wanted to be...squarely glued on the sleeping figure half covered by a red blanket, his tan skin an alluring contrast to the cream of the bedsheets…

 _Can't breathe_  her mind feebly tried to tell her, but she ignored it, ignored everything except the way the blanket slipped down a little every time he took a breath, or how the candlelight danced across his body every time the  _Pearl_  made a gentle roll in the waves.

 _Run._  Leave,  _right now_.

She should listen, she really should vacate anything having to do with him right this second, she should forget she ever came in here, forget what she was looking at... _but she didn't want to_.

No.

After forcing her lungs to function again...she made the dangerous decision to step closer to him, taking care to be quiet…

 _This wasn't fair_.  _She came in here to talk to Jack Sparrow, have a conversation with Jack Sparrow...not to stare at Jack Sparrow's deliciously naked barely covered body…_

 _._..but that was exactly what she was she was going to do, she'd be damned if she let this opportunity slip through her fingertips.

Innocence could be on its merry way for the time being...and it would probably never come back.

_Who are you kidding...you could almost say it left you when Jack held a gun to your head and pressed the full length of his body against you...but that would be suggesting that you were ever truly innocent in the first place._

_If you were, you certainly wouldn't be wishing that blanket to slip off altogether...nor would you be considering pulling it down yourself._

Hush, she told her unruly mind...there was no more stopping herself from this than there was stopping a hurricane from tearing a village apart.

Only, she was going to enjoy  _this_.


	2. Draco Dormiens

Each breath, measured, long, and calculated, meant to expel any and all reservations, doubts, fears...all of those demons and devils inside of her, the devil on her shoulder especially...and the angel telling her to run away...run away from the Pearl, away from the sea, away from freedom...away from  _him_.

But if she did, she would lose herself as she now was, she was certain of it, just as she was certain of the  _peace_  she felt watching him breathe, looking at his serene face...perhaps it was silly to say, perhaps not…

It was so... _different_ , seeing him like this...a man of mystery, two deep pools of onyx containing secrets and towering walls that she would never be able to climb over...walls of black bricks and hard steel, a gate covered in so many vines and thorns...and a long,  _long_  road winding through a forest with ash colored trees, charcoal leaves hanging from them...and it would be raining. Ghosts would be staring at her from behind the trunks, their little red eyes blazing, and his  _demons,_ laughing at her from the never-ending sky of smoke…

...she feared she would follow the patchwork lines of the bricks, up and over and up again, all the way until they disappeared in the clouds, lose all hope of ever making it past the gate...were she to try, the vines may strangle her...and if she made it past  _them_  by some miracle or grace...the expanse alone of his labyrinthine forest would deter her from going any further.

...if she were to be that person that would run away from him now.

But she was not that person.

The person standing in her boots, glued to his cabin floor, would marvel at the many bricks and lines of the wall, wonder what sort of thoughts they guarded...would willingly prick her fingers on the vine thorns, spend hours finding shapes in the twisting smoke in the sky, run around and around the trees, stop and admire the stones on the road, challenge the ghosts to try and scare her, and smile at the demons...all of it would be beautiful and endearing to her...a book that she had been forbidden to read...a place that she had been banned from visiting...so  _alluring_ , so intoxicating.

She was not a person to be afraid of Jack Sparrow. She feared nothing about him, not his walls, not his layers, not his core, not the front he put up...no, it was  _herself_  that she feared...the way  _she_  thought about him, the way she... _always_  thought about him…

He was a man of mystery, but he was more than that to her...he was a puzzle box, a riddle with a million different answers, he was the sea, he was something that shined brighter to her than the sun, stars, and moon...but his light was so bright it blinded her to anything and everything else, so the rest of the world was black and she could only see him, his dark eyes, and that damned knowing smile that peeled away at her until only her innermost self was left shivering in its wake.

But  _now_ , like this in front of her...briefly, she imagined coming upon a cave, carefully navigating its passageways and corridors, only to find a beast, a dragon...large and grand, its eyes shuttered and puffs of smoke coming out of its nostrils, sleeping... _dormant_.

_Jack_ , the great pirate captain, a sleeping dragon, a calmed hurricane...it was a treasure that she was not about to squander…and she could imagine what he would say to her if he knew she was standing there…" _Go on love, you're curious, no harm in it."_

" _Not afraid now, are you darling?"_

If he knew, he would love her struggle... _of course he would, since he was most of the reason for the struggle in the first place._

_She was not going to run_.

Even though she absolutely ought to. She ought to head straight for the door and forget that she ever came in here, forget what she'd seen, forget it all.

She ought to do a lot of things...but she didn't  _want to_.

She wanted to stay.

Her heart running for her, pounding against her ribcage, each beat sending a chaotic energy throughout the rest of her body, as though the very atmosphere was alive with her excitement at giving in.

_Go_.

One foot, settling down carefully in front of her, followed by the other foot, a delicate walk, timing her footsteps with her breath, rise, inhale, fall, exhale...until she found herself at the edge of the bed.

The blanket, a deep wine red, black etched into it where it was wrinkled... _velvet_ , she discovered. A luxurious soft velvet. The sheets, the color of white chocolate...making his skin look that much more sinful.

Where to begin her journey?

It should be a simple thing, admiring a human body...there was only so much to look at...but  _Jack_ , he was an entire mural of curiosities.

Long and slender, a wonder all on their own...whether they were wrapped around the Pearl's wheel, caressing the neck of a rum bottle, setting her skin on fire in her dreams, or tapping against his lips in contemplation...currently his fingers were splayed against the bed sheets, still...and his rings were absent, she noted, leaving them bare for her gaze. He had  _elegant_  hands, and she longed to hold one, to perhaps feel everywhere they had been, everything they had done...just in their roughness, in the weathered skin…

Then, the canvas of his sailor's arm...the lean muscle accentuated in the deep candlelight...the urge to reach up and trace his sparrow tattoo was strong, run the tip of her finger up and around the wing...briefly she imagined getting a small sparrow of her own somewhere, and showing it to him...

His broad shoulders...many times she had imagined wrapping her hands around them as he moved above her, clinging to them...or laying her head on one and falling asleep...but seeing them, it made the images crisp, strong, right on the surface, as though they were recent memories rather than fantasies.

The two bullet holes on his chest...when he had showed them to her on the island...the anger and frustration swirling in his eyes at her audacity to question him...she cursed whomever had shot him...the chance that he could have been taken away from her was too real...and still too possible. They looked angry...the wounds. Maybe they too disliked that they had missed their chance to kill him, just like the bastard that had inflicted them.

Below them...an object of particular curiosity for her...his nipples. Were they sensitive? Did men like to have them touched? Would he like to have his touched? They were...smaller than hers, she noted, and more pebbly.

Feeling a strange tightening in her own stomach as she stared at his...a perfectly tanned plane of flat muscle, ridges of shadow and illuminated flesh, the golden color of his skin a stunning contrast to the blanket that hid the most tantalizing secret of his masculinity.

Torturously, her eyes tiptoed down the thin line of black hair that led south from his navel, centimeter by centimeter she followed it until it disappeared from her view. She stared at the slight bulge in the cloth, unable to stop the heated blush from staining her cheeks…

He was so  _beautiful_...so... _forbidden._

A pirate, a man born to light up her world with darkness, allure, his black eyes and mischievous smile, yet, he could also dim the lights to a soft glow, a tenderness that she could see sitting under the surface of his banter and sharp tongue.

The hair stood up on the back of her neck when it occurred to her where she was, and what she was doing, and  _whom_  she was doing it to...ogling the Captain of the Black Pearl, laying naked in his bed...he could only be pretending to be asleep, and her heart accelerated and excitement washed through her skin in waves.

But he wasn't pretending. Not yet. He looked so peaceful, away from the world, in his own land of freedom from the tight confines of reality.

Desperately, she wished to climb into his dreams and share them with him, look at his horizons, and feel the spray of the ocean as it hit their skin. Surely, that is what he dreamed about...the ocean.

What else might a great pirate Captain dream about? Festivities, victory... _her_.

No,  _certainly not_.

She dreamed about him, but she didn't dare think that he might see her face in his dreams.

All the time, she dreamed about him. A torture all on it's own.

The thought had just fled her mind when a flicker of movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye...then his hand was appearing at the edge of the blanket, curling around it, lifting it up a little.

A breath caught in her throat, imprisoned there by her absolute attention on that blanket and his hand, and what lay just next to... _God_.

Then something else...a soft noise, a soft  _whisper_ , had her tracing her gaze back up his body to his lips...they were moving, making...it was a... _name_ …

"... _Lizzie…_ "

…. _No._

_Jack...don't do this to me. Don't let me sit here watching you like this, and start saying my name you damn pirate…_

But he was. He was whispering her name like a prayer, a sound stolen from his dream... _he was dreaming about her._

When she caught movement again, she didn't dare look, didn't dare glance down...but the rustle of fabric, the fluttering of her heart and the snakes and butterflies assaulting her stomach took control of her eyes just then, forcing them away from his finely carved lips, back down past his nipples, back down his flat stomach, just as his hand lifted the blanket away, the candlelight rippling across the cloth like small golden stars…

She stared.

_And stared._

_Stared until her eyes burned._

_Staring so intensely that she forgot to breath, felt the air fighting to be released from her lungs with no victory in sight, felt the goosebumps as they prickled her skin, staring like a woman absolutely done for._

_Only the wetness between her legs reminded her that she was a living human being, because at that moment, her body was threatening to separate from her soul._

_And her soul was consumed by the sight in front of her._

_Forever, just like the man had ingrained his way into her heart, this image was now burned onto her soul._

She willed time to stop, willed the Earth to stop, if only to preserve this precious moment for a little longer, afraid that something was going to snatch her away from him.

But nothing was going to take her, not when she felt like she had melded with the other half of herself...it was clear as day that this was where she was meant to be.

_With him_.


End file.
